glass awning, Peter hesitated, and the captain glanced back with a smile.
“Don’t worry, son. You’re with me.”
That didn’t help as they continued into the huge cafe and followed a maitre d’ to a small table in the center. Under high chandeliers, Russian commanders in full uniform laughed with Czech apparatchiks and smoked furiously over shots of Becherovka and Smirnoff. This was not a place for students.
The security officer asked the waiter for two cups of cafe au lait.
“Peter,” he said, smiling.
“Yes?”
The officer tugged his mustache. “I’ve talked to a lot of young men and women over the past weeks, but you-you’re interesting.”
“I’m not.”
“Don’t be modest. My world-an interrogator’s world-is a world of secrets. My visitors protect those secrets with lies. The lies are usually simple enough- I didn’t do this, or that — but you…” He wagged a finger. “Your lie puzzles me. You say you watched your friends cross into Austria, yes?”
Peter nodded as the waiter set down their cups and backed away.
“See? This is my confusion. The lie can only serve to incriminate you, as an accomplice to criminal human smuggling. When the fact-as today’s list of casualties proves-is that Toman Samulka and Ivana Vogler were shot down in a cornfield the day before you were picked up.”
Peter looked at his dirty fingernails. “I guess they came back.”
“That’s reasonable, right?” The captain paused. “No, I’m afraid it’s not. Because the report also states there was a third person in that field. A man who escaped because the gun on the jeep jammed.” He bobbed his eyebrows. “Pretty lucky man, you are.”
Peter took a sip of his coffee-hot milk singed his tongue. “I don’t know who that was.”
“Who?”
“The man who got away.”
The officer wagged his finger again. “Look at you! You’ve got the talent. You can keep a straight face-you don’t even blush!”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“What I’m talking about, Comrade Husak, is that you have a talent that shouldn’t go to waste. It’s not important to me what happened down at the border, but whatever happened, you’d rather lie to me than let it be known.”
Peter blinked because the cigarette smoke and crystal-refracted light were drying his eyes. “Nothing happened at the border.”
“You really are good,” said Poborsky. “I’ve looked at your record. Up until two months ago, you were a fine student. You studied your…music? You avoided marches. You didn’t even take part in socialist rallies.”
“Politics aren’t my concern.”
“Good, good. Because, between you and me, I hate zealots, no matter what side they’re on. They shout so much it hurts my poor ears.” He smiled. “You know, I’m told all the time that everything is political. Man, our socialist teachers explain, is a political animal, and, in fact, the personal is the political. But between you and me, I’ve never believed that. The political, in fact, is really only the personal dressed up in more flamboyant clothes. There is no political man, only men, whose politics grow from their personal traumas. You follow me?”
Peter didn’t answer, but Poborsky nodded as if he had. “I see you do.”
Peter knew where all this was leading, but he wanted the captain to spell it out. “Why are you telling me this?”
“Because I think your route in life is still to be charted. Because I think you are made for better things than musicology.”
Peter finished his coffee and set down the empty cup. The officer took a slip of paper from his pocket and placed it on the table. There was a phone number written on it.
“Take it,” he said.
Peter folded the paper into his jacket pocket. “Can I go now?”
“Who’s keeping you?” Comrade Poborsky leaned forward and whispered, “There’s another world out there. Just call that number when you’re ready.”
“For recruitment?”
“Recruitment or information. Whatever you feel is within your power.”
Peter walked out of the Obecni Dum.
Gavra
The metro brought him to the First District militia station, to homicide. Unlike many buildings that had been torn down and reconstructed in the socialist mold, this station retained its form from before the war. Habsburg flourishes decorated the high, narrow window frames and, along the third floor, cracked maidens gazed protectively down at the street. The cracks continued inside, twisting along the buckling walls, painted over every few months in pale green.
Brano Sev had kept a desk there, on and off, for the past thirty years. As his apprentice, Gavra shared it. At the three other desks sat Katja and Imre, whom he greeted. The third desk was banally empty, and for an instant Gavra wondered if he’d be given Libarid’s desk. He was tired of pulling up a spare chair beside Brano.
The thought made him want to hit himself.
Katja and Imre-his feet propped on his desk as he spoke on the telephone-nodded back at him but didn’t say a word. There was a palpable gloom over the office. Brano didn’t look up at him, but that wasn’t unusual, because the old man came into this business at the end of the war, when state security agents learned how to let people hate them. He created distance with everyone, because he believed that it served him better this way.
Katja had never made a secret of hating Brano, and Imre, in his quiet way, felt the same. Even Chief Emil Brod, despite the obligations of his job and their long shared history, was never warm with Brano Sev, as he was with the rest of them. Brano Sev was a peculiar man.
Gavra paused at Katja’s desk. “How’s it coming so far?”
She tugged some blond hair behind her ear as her phone began to ring. “I’m going to check with the Hotel Metropol today. We only just got the names from the passenger manifest.”
She sounded tense, and she was squeezing a pen tightly. The phone continued to ring. “You going to answer that?”
She looked at the phone, then shook her head. “I know who it is.”
“What’s wrong?” he asked in a lowered voice.
“Nothing. Look, I wanted you to come along to the hotel, but the Com rade says you’re going to be occupied.”
“Take Imre,” he whispered.
Katja rolled her eyes. It was common knowledge that Imre Papp was a dunce. “Why can’t you come?”
“We’re interviewing a suspect.”
“Gavra,” said Brano, using a finger to call him over.
“What suspect?” asked Katja.
Imre, by the window, covered the telephone mouthpiece with his palm. “We’ve got a suspect?”
“It’s not for public discussion,” said Brano. “Gavra. Over here.”
As he moved to the old man’s desk, Katja said, “This is typical. Just the kind of lackluster help I’ve come to expect.”
Gavra pulled up a chair, and Brano leaned close. “I pointed out yesterday that it’s not common knowledge Wilhelm Adler is in this country. Let’s try to keep it that way.”
Just then the far door, marked CHIEF, opened, and Emil Brod stepped out. The small, graying man always had an air of confusion about him, and when he saw Gavra he looked for an instant as if he couldn’t remember who he was. “Gavra,” he said finally, coming forward and offering a hand. “Any news?”
